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"The Old
Testament scriptures were lodged in Paul’s memory, and he quotes from them
again to explain the “need for endurance” (36). “FOR YET IN A VERY
LITTLE WHILE, THE ONE COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY.” Quoting
from the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), as he does
throughout this epistle, Paul allows the words of Habakkuk 2:3 to speak to
the situation of the Jerusalem Christians. The delayed consummation of
Christ’s victory to be revealed in the second advent created an “enigma of
the interim” for the early Christians, but Paul uses Habakkuk’s words as his
words to indicate that “the Coming One,” Jesus, will come “in a very little
while,” very soon, i.e. imminently. This may refer to the “second coming of
the parousia, as in Revelation 2:25, “Hold fast until I come.” More likely,
Paul is referring to the imminent coming of Christ in judgment, when (perhaps
within a year after the receipt of this letter) the Romans came against the
residents of
The epistle to the Hebrews has suffered from anonymity. There is anonymity of both author and recipients because these details are not included in the text of the letter. Such anonymity makes the document suspect in the minds of some for it provides no specificity of its intended meaning within a given context. The anonymity of writer and reader allows the epistle to be abstracted and generalized without a specific sitz em leben (setting in life) to provide historical context and a basis for specific amplification and application of the meaning of the words. Anonymous text allows for a dilution of meaning in interpretation of the text, or allows an expositor to run rampant with personal presuppositions which are imposed upon or applied to the text. In other words, anonymity can diminish exegesis (interpretive meaning drawn out of the text) and/or facilitate eisegesis (interpretive meaning read into the text). In either case, whether subtractive or additive, such interpretation cannot and does not take into account the full intent of the original author to his recipients, and thus diminishes the value and meaning of the text for subsequent generations of readers.
This has certainly
been the case in the interpretation of the epistle to the Hebrews. The letter
has suffered from neglect and misuse. The regrettable consequence of the
anonymous authorship of this literature has been the reluctance of some
Christians to accept it as fully authentic and authoritative. Even in the
early church it was little used and cited. Hebrews has suffered from a subtle
skepticism throughout Christian history because of its unknown authorship,
and contemporary interpretation continues to neglect this important portion
of inspired Scripture. But perhaps of greater consequence is the fact that
the Church through the ages has therefore suffered from the lack of
understanding of the unique message of this letter in its assertion of the
radical supremacy of the Christian gospel over Judaic religion, and religion
in general. The epistle to the Hebrews is not the only document of antiquity that is devoid of the details of origin and destination. Within the New Testament literature itself there are other examples of literature without statement of authorship or destination. John's epistles, for example, do not contain his name or any designation of his readers, but these have been reconstructed with what evidence is available (particularly in the case of First Epistle of John) to provide a meaningful historical context for interpretation. The same can be accomplished for the Epistle to the Hebrews, as we will set about to do.
The task of a Biblical
expositor is to consider the evidence available concerning the historical
context of a document, draw a conclusion based on that evidence, and
interpret the text accordingly. Biblical scholarship, with its ever-skeptical
approach, has been very cowardly in drawing conclusions about the authorship
of Hebrews, thus assuring that the text can have only nebulous interpretive
meaning. What, then, is the evidence for authorship, destination and dating
of this epistle, in order to give it specific historical context? What is the
most legitimate conclusion that can be drawn based on that evidence? Authorship
The primary objections to Pauline authorship have traditionally been explained as: (1) the absence of Paul's name in the epistle, (2) the apparent second-hand knowledge referred to in 2:3, and (3) the style, grammar and vocabulary of the epistle which seems to differ from other Pauline writings.
The absence of Paul's name or signature was explained as early as 200 A.D. in the Hypotypos of Clement of Alexandria (c. 155-215). Though that eight volume outline of Christian thought has not been preserved, a portion of that document was quoted by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History:
"He (Clement of Alexandria) says that the Epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul, and that it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but that Luke translated it carefully and published it for the Greeks, and hence the same style of expression is found in this epistle and in the Acts. But he says that the words, 'Paul the Apostle', were probably not prefixed, because, in sending it to the Hebrews, who were prejudiced and suspicious of him, he wisely did not wish to repel them at the very beginning by giving his name. ...Paul, as sent to the Gentiles, on account of his modesty did not subscribe himself an apostle of the Hebrews, through respect for the Lord, and because being a herald and apostle of the Gentiles he wrote to the Hebrews out of his superabundance."1
The reason for the absence of Paul's name is hereby explained early in church history as a sensitivity of the "Apostle to the Gentiles" in writing to Hebrew peoples, who were his kinsmen. The absence of his name does not exclude Paul from authorship anymore than the absence of John's name excludes his authorship of the epistles attributed to him.
The contested statement in Hebrews 2:3, "After it (the word of salvation) was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard," seems to evidence a second-hand knowledge of the gospel, and Paul certainly argues vehemently for the right of apostleship through a first-hand knowledge of Jesus Christ in Galatians 1:112:10. But the words can just as accurately be interpreted by explaining that Paul was admitting that he was not one of the original twelve disciples who traveled with the historical Jesus, and therefore was not privileged to directly hear the words that Jesus spoke in that context. This does not in any way diminish his apostleship that he argued for in Galatians, such argument for his apostleship to the Gentiles obviously muted in this correspondence to Jewish Christians.
The argument of differing style, grammar and vocabulary is not all that conclusive either, especially since this epistle was being written to any entirely different audience and with an entirely different purpose than any of Paul's other epistles. Many of the vocabulary differences, where Paul employs words not used in other writings (hapax logomena), are in the context of his contrasting Jesus with Jewish history and theology, of which he was obviously quite knowledgeable and would not have been so apt to use in writing to Gentile congregations. The stylistic differences of the Greek text were explained by Clement of Alexandria (see above) as due to Luke's translation from Hebrew to Greek.
Having considered the objections to Pauline authorship, it is incumbent upon us to now present the evidence that exists that points to Paul as the most likely author of this letter.
The papyrus fragment
identified as P46 is the oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline
epistles. This Greek manuscript from
We have already noted that the eight volume Hypotypos of Clement of Alexandria, written c. 200 AD, clearly indicated that Paul was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, giving explanation of the absence of his name in the epistle and explanation of the variation in grammatical style of the Greek text (see quotation from Eusebius above).
Origen (185-253), in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, wrote that "the Apostle Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'At the end of the days He spoke to us in His Son' (Heb. 1:2)".2 Origen clearly attributes Pauline authorship to the epistle to the Hebrews, from which he quotes.
The early Alexandrian
scholars of the Eastern Church consistently regarded Paul as the author of
this epistle. The scholars of the
As additional evidence
it should be noted that the author mentions Timothy (13:23), who was Paul's
closest colleague in ministry, mentioned often in other Pauline epistles
(Rom. 16:21; II Cor. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; 2;19; Col. 1:1; I Thess. 1:1; 3:2,6;
Philemon 1:1). The author appears to have previously visited the group of
people to whom he was writing, and hoped to revisit them (13:19,23),
consistent with the fact that Paul had visited the church in
The evidence is certainly not sufficient to dismiss or deny Paul as the most likely author of this epistle to the Hebrews. In fact, we must be honest enough to admit that the preponderance of the evidence leads to Pauline authorship. All other proposed authors of this epistle (Silas, Philip, Mark, Priscilla, etc.) are merely speculative assignments, "shots in the dark" to suggest another name other than Paul. The name of Apollos was not even suggested until the 16th century by Martin Luther. There is no way to compare the literary criteria of grammar, vocabulary and style with other writings of these speculatively proposed authors for many of them have no other literature to compare with. What a convenient way to preclude Pauline authorship and preempt having to deal with the grammatical issues by assigning authorship to unpublished persons.
Though one must
"swim against the tide" of several centuries of skeptical academic
scholarship in the textual criticism of Protestant Biblical studies, the
evidence is quite sufficient to assert that the Apostle Paul was the most
likely author of this epistle to the Hebrews. Recipients The text does not
indicate who the first readers were, again leaving us with an anonymity of
original recipients. So, what internal and external evidence can be presented
to make an assignment of destination? Based upon the abundance of references to Jewish religion and the old covenant, particularly the Levitical priesthood and temple practices, this document has been referred to as "the epistle to the Hebrews," at least since the latter part of the second century AD. It is reasonable to assume that the original readers were Christians from a Jewish background, even though the quotations from the Old Testament seem to be from the Greek translation of the Septuagint (LXX), which would be consistent with Paul's bilingual knowledge of the Old Testament and his frequent utilization of the LXX among Gentiles.
It appears that the author was addressing a particular community of Christians with whom he was personally acquainted. He was aware of their having endured persecution (10:32,33; 12:4), as well as their present situation (5:12; 6:9; 13:17), and intended to revisit them (13:19,23). The author and the readers were mutually acquainted with Timothy (13:23).
The mention of
"Italy" (13:24) in the closing comments of the epistle has caused
some to conclude that the recipients were Jewish Christians residing in Rome,
who were being greeted by fellow Italians living in the location from whence
this epistle was written. That same reference can be interpreted to mean that
the location of origination was
Who else would have
had such attachment to Jewish history and theology, such close ties with
It is most reasonable
to assume that Paul was imprisoned in Rome in the mid-60s of the first
century (as we know from Luke's account in the Acts of the Apostles
28:16-31), and he had a good social and spiritual perspective of what was
going on in the Roman persecutions of Christians under Emperor Nero (who died
in 68 A.D.), as well as the Roman attitudes toward the Palestinian Jews. He
also knew the attitudes of the Palestinian Jews with their intense
nationalist patriotism, their religious absolutism, their racist superiority,
and he could foresee that a violent war was about to erupt in
The Christian Jews in
Paul writes to
encourage these Palestinian Christians not to take the easy way out and
revert to religion again, in particular Judaism, with its religious practices
and nationalistic patriotism. He explained that the old covenant of God's
working with and through the Jews, was obsolete and would soon disappear in
destruction (8:13) as it soon did in 70 A.D. The old covenant was only
intended to pre-figure and set-up the new covenant of all that God intended
to do in His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the old
covenant pictures and types, the fulfillment of all God's intents and
promises (II Cor. 1:20) for His people. "Don't go back to
religion," Paul is saying. "Go outside the camp" (13:13),
repudiate Judaism, perhaps even consider leaving
"when the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the time had come for a complete and final severance from the ancient order. For now the predicted judgment was impending on Jerusalem, the temple was about to be destroyed for ever, the whole sacrificial system connected therewith to cease, and the nation to be scattered through the world without a home in Palestine. Full time was it now for Christ's followers fully to perceive that from the old dispensation, never more than provisional, the glory was passed away; to come entirely out of the once holy but now doomed city; to lean no longer on the tottering fabric of the temple, lest their very faith should be shattered in its downfall."3
If, as the evidence
suggests, Paul wrote this epistle to the church in Jerusalem which was
undergoing persecution (not only by the Romans, but even more by the
Palestinian Jews - cf. 10:32-36), then this epistle was one of the last, if
not the last, that Paul wrote. Why is this important? Because if the
epistle to the Galatians was the first of Paul's extant epistles, and the
epistle to the Hebrews was the last, then we can observe the total
consistency of Paul's thinking throughout his ministry. Galatians and Hebrews
are two of the clearest New Testament epistles exposing the radical
uniqueness of Christianity as set against the old covenant and Judaic
religion. All of Paul's other writings must then be interpreted in the
context of Galatians and Hebrews, as they form the alpha and omega
of the Pauline corpus, serving as the "bookends" of Pauline
theology. Date of Writing There is also no direct indication of the date of writing in the text of this epistle. Most scholars have concluded that it was written prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD since there is no reference to that catastrophic historical event, and one would certainly expect such had it been written to Christian readers of Jewish background after that event. The writer's repeated references to Jewish rituals using present tense verbs (7:8; 9:6-13; 13:10,11) also seems to indicate a date when such practices were still being performed in the temple at Jerusalem prior to its destruction. The only other referent point for dating this document is that Clement of Rome was apparently acquainted with this epistle by approximately 95 A.D.
It is quite likely
that Emperor Nero's "urban renewal project" had just occurred in
Paul, under house
arrest in
The best conclusion,
based on the evidence, seems to indicate that this letter was written by Paul
from Rome to the Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem in the middle 60s of the
first century, perhaps in 64 or 65 AD just prior to Paul's likely execution
at the hands of the Romans. Interpretive Considerations
Be forewarned that the epistle to the Hebrews contains what is perhaps the most radical message in the New Testament. It may upset the applecart of your religious understanding. No other book in the New Testament so categorically asserts that God's arrangement with men in the Old Testament is no longer valid, making that point by declaring that Jesus is better than every feature of the old covenant. To drive the point home the readers are warned that if they revert to the Judaic religious practices of their past, having participated in the new covenant realities of Jesus Christ, they will forfeit all opportunity to participate in the eternal realities of Jesus Christ again.
With at least eighty-six direct references to the Old Testament within this letter, and with constant attention drawn to the Jewish people and their religion, it is important to consider the correlation of this document to the Old Testament. Some have indicated that a thorough understanding of the Old Testament is essential to understanding the epistle to the Hebrews. Though it is true that an understanding of the historical background and ritualistic practices of the old covenant and the Hebrew peoples provides a valuable context for interpreting this document, it is perhaps even more important to realize that a thorough understanding of the Epistle to the Hebrews is essential to a proper understanding of the Old Testament from a Christian perspective. If the "Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed," as has often been explained as the basis for Christian hermeneutics, then the revealing of the gospel, especially in the book of Hebrews, should serve as the starting-point to consider how the gospel was concealed in the clues of the prefiguring of the Old Testament. The failure to interpret the Old Testament from this perspective has led to much confusion and misemphasis in Christian teaching, allowing the Old Testament to serve as the priority literature even in the lives of new covenant Christians. When this happens Christianity is perverted into religious forms of Christianized Judaism, which is the very thing that this epistle warns against and condemns. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the best antidote to such religious perversion, serving as the necessary commentary on the Old Testament, and interpreting the history, worship and prophecy of the Old Testament as it points in its entirety to Jesus Christ.
Clyde F. Whitehead explains that
"The Hebrews epistle deals with most of the important things that were associated with the old dispensation. The writer's objective is to show that the Mosaic law has been replaced by something that is far 'better.'"4
J. Barmby, writing in the Pulpit Commentary, comments that
"its main purport is to show, from the Old Testament Scriptures themselves, that the Mosaic dispensation was from the first only preparatory for and prophetic of a higher one to come which was entirely to supersede it, and that Christ had come as the one only true High Priest for all mankind, the true fulfilment of all ancient ritual and prophecy, the satisfaction of all human needs, to renounce whom would be to renounce salvation."5
The Epistle to the Hebrews is pivotal to understanding the old covenant literature of the Old Testament. It is equally as pivotal to understanding all of the rest of the new covenant literature of the New Testament. This epistle might well have been placed as the first book in the New Testament canon arrangement, providing the bridge that explains the preliminary purpose of God in the old covenant and the superlative fulfillment of God's purpose in the new covenant, i.e. in Jesus Christ.
Over and over the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews uses the word "better" to describe the spiritual reality afforded in Jesus Christ. Christians have a "better hope" (7:19) within a "better covenant" (7:22; 8:6) with "better promises" (8:6). "God has provided something better for us" (11:40) by the "better sacrifice" (9:23) of Jesus Christ, that we might enjoy the "better possession" (10:34). This theme provides the basis of our entitling this study, "Jesus Better Than Religion."
R.B. Yerby writes,
"Along with the
other New Testament writers, the author of Hebrews saw the total and
overwhelming superiority of the new and better age that dawned at
Those who fail to understand the better reality of the new covenant in Jesus Christ as plainly expounded in the epistle to the Hebrews, tend to have a false hope for a reversionary return to the physical and external rituals of old covenant Jewish religion. This has become a popular theological interpretation in Western Christendom. Yerby responds to such by noting that,
"Hebrews...perhaps more than any of the books of the Bible, stands as a monumental source of frustration and embarrassment to those who teach that God plans to return one day to the natural trappings and embellishments of the old Jewish economy, to the natural land and city, the natural law and ordinances, the natural kingdom and throne, and the natural temple and sacrifices."7
"Like Paul, we should be 'afraid of' anyone who teaches that God's program calls for a future return to the bondage of those weak and beggarly elements of Old Testament Judaism (Gal. 4:9-11)."8
Proper understanding
of the Epistle to the Hebrews will reveal the logical absurdity of any
expectations that God is going to renew the Jewish religion, re-establish a
physical kingdom, reinstitute the Jewish priesthood, reinstate the animal
sacrifices, rebuild the Jewish temple, or restore the physical land. Such
expectations are the very backward reversions to religion that this epistle
warns against, by explaining that all such external and physical religion has
been superseded in the spiritual reality of Jesus Christ. Christocentric
Emphasis In the epistle to the Hebrews we are inculcated to "consider Jesus" (3:1; 12:3) as the spiritual reality that God has made available for all men. The ontological dynamic of the living Lord Jesus by His Spirit is the essence of Christianity. This Christocentric emphasis is at the heart of all of the inspired literature of the New Testament, and is certainly the focal point of this letter.
Jesus is better than
all religion because He is personal. The Personal, Living God sent His Son as
the God-man to personally redeem and restore mankind. Only by the dynamic
Person and Life of Jesus Christ can man be restored to function as God
intended in a personal faith/love relationship with God. To revert to
religion is to settle for impersonal things, events, places and practices
which can never satisfy. Jesus is better than all religion because He is the singular, exclusive, ultimate and final revelation of God to man. He is the sum of all spiritual things (cf. Eph. 1:10), allowing for no religious syncretism or admixture. Though religion regards such an assertion as "the scandal of singularity and exclusivism," Jesus is the only "mediator between God and man" (I Tim. 2:5). "No man comes unto the Father, but by Me" (Jn. 14:6). "There is no other name under heaven whereby a man must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
Jesus is better than all religion because of the completeness and permanency of His finished work (Jn. 19:30). Whereas religion is limited, temporary and repetitive, the life of Jesus is eternal and forever. As a "priest forever" (5:6), Jesus is "eternal salvation" (5:9) within the "eternal covenant" (13:20).
Jesus is better than all religion because He is the provision and sufficiency for practical experiential behavior that glorifies God. The impracticality of religious belief-systems, moralities, and rituals are most unsatisfying, but "through Jesus Christ we are equipped in every good thing to do God's will" (13:20).
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews exalts Jesus Christ as the essence of the Christian gospel. Christianity is not religion; Christianity is Christ! Jesus is better than all religion.
FOOTNOTES
1 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History. VI,14,2. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
JESUS THE BETTER REVELATION OF GOD
This epistle does not have a traditional epistolary introduction or prologue as do other Pauline epistles. Explanation for the absence of such was made by Clement of Alexandria (c. 200 A.D.), noting that Paul avoided the inclusion of his name at the beginning of the letter so that the message he had to share would not be detracted from by any previous biases or prejudices of the recipients who were suspicious of his association with, and inclusion of, the Gentiles. Paul, therefore, gets right to the point of demonstrating and documenting that Jesus Christ is the better revelation of God to men. He will do so by asserting that Jesus is better than the prophets (1:1-3), and better than the angels (1:4-14), and thus provides a better incentive to be receptive to Christ (2:1-4).
The saints in the
church at 1:1 In the original Greek language the letter begins with two "poly" prefixed words referring to "many parts and many ways". The revelation of God in the old covenant was multiportional and multifarious, or to use "poly" words, polypartitive and polymodal. "Of old (long ago) God was speaking to the fathers in the prophets" in multiple portions and by multiple means. Over a period of several millennia God revealed Himself partially and progressively throughout the Hebrew history recorded in the Old Testament. Paul begins this letter to the Palestinian Jews by reminding them of the multiple occasions and multiple dimensions by which God spoke and made Himself known in old covenant history, but the point he is making is simply to set up the logical contrast of how Jesus Christ is the singular, undivided and complete self-revelation of God to mankind. The multiple preliminary prefiguring of God's actions in Jewish history, as He spoke to the fathers through the many Hebrew prophets, is used by Paul to create the explanation of the better revelation of God in the singularity of His self-revelation in His Son. The "fathers" are not necessarily restricted to the "patriarchs" of Genesis, but are the ancestral forefathers of previous generations of Hebrew peoples (cf. 3:9; 8:9).
Jesus was not just
another in a long line of Hebrew prophets. He was not merely a spokesperson
for God. Jesus was the singular and unique God-man, the Son of God incarnated
in the humanity of a man. As such, He provided the only provision of God for
the needs of mankind, superior to all previous and prior revelatory
pronouncements about God in the old covenant. Jesus did not come to tell us
more about God, or to give mankind more information about God's attributes
and God's intentions. No, Jesus came as God the self-revelation of
God. His every act was invested with the very Being of God, and the very
Being of God was fully operative in every act. The self-revelation of God in
Jesus necessarily implies the oneness of His Being and act. Jesus was not the
"virtual reality" of God, "as if" He were God in action;
nor was He the "remote action" of God, manipulated from a position
of transcendence to produce a secondary and mediated action of God. No, Jesus
was the real action of the very reality of God, the ontological dynamic of
the very essence of God operational in the man, Jesus. I do not believe that
this in any way overstates the point Paul sought to make in his contrast with
the prior prophetic pronouncements of God in the past. The participial form of the verb Paul uses about "God having spoken" in this first verse may have been intended to be contrasted with the aorist indicative form of the same verb in the second verse. That "God has spoken to us in the Son" expresses a more definite and deliberate act of God, perhaps even the punctiliar action that emphasizes the singularity and superiority of God's revelation of Himself in the Son, as contrasted with polymorphous expression of the prophets in the old covenant. The better expression and revelation of God is in the Son. Such revelation is not just a proclamation, but an incarnation, a personified self-revelation.
The use of "old" (Greek palai) in this initial verse of the epistle establishes a theme that will be employed throughout, contrasting the old covenant arrangement of God's preparatory dealing toward mankind with the new covenant arrangement of God's permanent and eternal action for man in Jesus Christ. (cf. covenants) Paul wants to dissuade the Jewish Christians from reverting to the old covenant religion of Judaism after they have already participated in the better spiritual realities of the new covenant in Jesus Christ.
1:2 The Pauline perspective of history is always divided by not only the old covenant and the new covenant, but by the correlative concept of the "past" and the "last." The old is "past", even obsolete (8:13), and the "last" in the sequence (Greek word eschatos from which we transliterate the word "eschatology") is the new reality that God has made known in His Son, Jesus, who is the "last Adam", the Eschatos Man (I Cor. 15:45); God's "last word" for mankind singularly, completely, decisively and finally. (cf. last things) Eschatology is often mistakenly understood to be the study of the future and that which is yet to transpire. Properly understood, eschatology is the study of "last things", and God's last and final arrangement for man is in Jesus Christ. In the first proclamation of the early church, Peter commenced by saying that Joel's prophecy of the "last days" (Joel 2:28) was fulfilled by the Pentecostal manifestation of the Spirit of Christ (Acts 2:17). Now Paul commences with the same theme that "in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son." The "last days" are not future. Rather, they began in the past when God historically revealed Himself incarnationally in the Son, and they continue throughout the new covenant "day of salvation" (cf. II Cor. 6:2) unto the "last time" (cf. I Peter 1:5) of the future. Although Jewish eschatology was always future-focused, Christian eschatology is focused on Christ, the fulfillment of God's "last things", and must necessarily be based on what Christ has already accomplished on our behalf in His "finished work" (John 19:30), all the while recognizing the perpetuity and continuum of His eternal work into the future. Christian eschatology will always recognize the "already" and the "not yet" of God's "last things" in Jesus Christ.
Writing to the Jewish
Christians in
Although this letter primarily contrasts old covenant and new covenant, Judaism and Christianity, it is important to note that there is both continuity and discontinuity in the connection and contrasts. Continuity is evident in that it is "God who spoke to the fathers in the prophets" (1:1), and the same "God who has spoken in His Son" (1:2). Judaism and Christianity are historically linked, and God's action in the old covenant must not be regarded as irrelevant or of no value by those who participate in the new covenant. Though the previous revelation of God was temporary and preparatory as a pictorial prefiguring, it was nonetheless foundational and necessary, having been enacted by God. Paul's point is that the old arrangement has been superseded by all that is new and better in Jesus Christ. So it is that he commences by noting the diverse and fragmentary modality of the prophetic proclamation of God in the old covenant as contrasted with the superior, singular modality of God's self-revelation in the Son, who Himself declared, 'I AM the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by Me" (John 14:6).
It is "the
Son whom God appointed heir of all things." A son is always a
primary heir prior to any eligibility (if any) of servants. Later in the
epistle (3:5,6) Paul will note that Moses was a "servant," whereas
Jesus was the "Son." In the distinctly Messianic second Psalm, we
discover the prophetic pointer to the Messianic Son inheriting all from His
Father: "He said to Me, 'Thou art My Son... Ask of Me, and I will surely
give the nations as Thine inheritance'" (Psalm 2:7,8). Jesus, the Son,
was foreordained of God to be the heir of all things, i.e. everything God has
to give. The prophets were not the heirs of all things of God. The Jewish
people were not the heirs of all things, even though they thought they had an
exclusive right to all the things of God. This may be the contrastual point
Paul was making when he wrote that the "Son was appointed heir of all
things." The Jews had long considered that they had an exclusive right
to the fulfillment of all God's promises, that the divine inheritance was all
theirs. Particularly, they laid claim to the promises of God to Abraham
pertaining to land (Gen. 12:7; 15:7; 17:8), nation (Gen. 12:2; 17:4,5;
18:18), blessing (Gen. 12:2,3; 18:18), and posterity (Gen. 13:15,16; 15:5;
22:17), believing these to be their divine right of inheritance in physical
fulfillment. When this epistle was written the Palestinian Jews were
zealously mobilizing to claim their inheritance of land, nation and blessing
by attempting to oust the Romans from
Paul proceeds to explain to his readers that this Son is the one "through whom also He made the ages." In other words, Jesus was preexistent with God, one in Being with God, and active in the divine creation of all created existence. Paul had explained this in other writings, noting that "through Christ are all things, and we exist through Him" (I Cor. 8:6), for "by Him all things were created...by Him and for Him" (Col. 1:16). John likewise explained that "all things come into being by Him (Jesus, the Word), and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (John 1:3), for "the world was made by Him" (John 1:10). Jesus, as God, created "all things" and is the heir of "all things". He is the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6; 22:13) of all things, the origin and the objective of all divine things, for He is divine Being in action. Etiology and teleology merge in the divine action of the Son. This is the point that Paul is seeking to drive home to these Christians of Jewish heritage, that the popular Jewish perspective of God as a singular and isolated monad is insufficient to explain God's actions and intents. A Trinitarian perception of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is required to understand the better revelation of God's self-revelation of Himself in the Son.
It was as God that Jesus was instrumental in the creation of the universe, of time and space. The word Paul employs here is not kosmos, the Greek word for "world", but aionas, the Greek plural for "ages" (cf. Heb. 11:3). Though these two words can be used synonymously for divine creation in general, there may be an emphasis on Christ's creative action in both the old age and the new age, and that to establish that "at the consummation of the ages (which He Himself had created) He was manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. 9:26), so that those "in Him" might participate in "the powers of the age to come" (Heb. 6:5). Jesus' divine action in the physical creation of time and space is reenacted in the re-creation of man spiritually by His redemptive and restorative work. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature" (II Cor. 5:17), a participant in the "new creation" (Gal. 6:16). Despite the attempts of the Jewish nationalists in Judea to create a "new thing" in Palestine, Paul would tell the Christians to be content with the creative acts of Jesus Christ, who had already constituted them "a holy nation" (I Pet. 2:9) in Him.
Paul has explained that the better revelation, the final revelation of God, presently available "in these last days" was incarnationally, redemptively and restorationally enacted in the self-revelation of Himself in the Son, who is the divine creative source of all things and the divinely ordained heir of all things, so that all of God's Being in action is in Him. He will continue to explain this unitive and Trinitarian basis of divine action in the next sentence.
1:3 "He (Jesus) is the radiance of His (God's) glory." As the "I AM" (cf. John 8:58; 10:9,11; 11:25; 14:6), Jesus is the eternally present tense emanation of divine glory. "The Word was made flesh, and we beheld His glory" (John 1:14), and the eternal Word continuously radiates divine glory as God. It is not that the Son merely reflects the glory of God like a mirror. That would be to separate the Son from the divine source. No, Jesus radiates, emanates and expresses divine glory as the self-generating God. Through the prophet Isaiah, God declared, "I am the Lord..., I will not give My glory to another" (Isa. 42:8; 48:11). God cannot dispense His glory as if it were a detached commodity. His glory is in Himself, and God is glorified when His all-glorious character is expressed unto His own glory. Again, He is subject and object, source and recipient, of His own glory. "Crowned with glory and honor" (Heb. 2:7,9) as the God-man, Jesus glorified the Father by expressing divine character at all times as a man, and then prayed that He might "be glorified with the glory that He had with the Father before the world was" (John 17:5), in order to continue as the Glorified One to express and emanate divine glory as God.
It seems that religion is always attempting to find God's glory in something other than the Christic expression of such, believing that God's glory "shines from" determined manifestations or successful results. Some have thought that God's glory was only in their belief-system, their denomination, or their worship patterns. The particular religious situation that Paul addresses in writing to the Jerusalem Christians was that the Jewish religion conceived of God's glory either as the Shekinah glory observed by the high priest once a year in the Holy of Holies of the temple, or in considering themselves as "God's chosen people" to be the glory of God. Paul explains that the living Lord Jesus is "the radiance of God's glory", allowing the invisible character of God to be made visible by generating such out of His own Being. Jesus is "the image of the invisible God" (II Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15), and only by His presence and activity (Being in action) can Christians "do all to the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31), having beheld "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (II Cor. 4:6), in order to be "transformed into the same image from glory to glory" (II Cor. 3:18).
In what some have regarded as a synonymous or parallel statement to the previous, but which is surely a deeper amplification of Jesus' deity, Paul explains that the Son is "the express image of God's essence." This is a difficult phrase to translate, as is evident in the many English translations: "exact representation of His nature" (NASB), "express image of His person" (KJV), "bears the very stamp of His nature" (RSV), "exact representation of His being" (NIV). It seems inadequate to indicate that Jesus is the "representation" of God, for the point that Paul seems to be making is that Jesus is the very "reality" of God. The word that Paul uses, the Greek word charakter (from which we get the English word "character"), was used in the engraving of an imprint to stamp an image on a coin, thus eliciting the translations of "representation", "image", "stamp," "imprint", etc. What we must avoid is any translation that implies that Jesus is a separated, secondary, instrumental stamp or imprint that is in any way less than God. The second noun in the phrase is no less difficult to translate: the Greek word hupostasis refers to the underlying reality of essence, substance or constitution. Since the Greek language has a clear word for "nature" (phusis), it is preferable not to translate this word in the same way, but to translate it as "essence" or as "substance" (as the KJV translates the same word in Heb. 11:1).
What is Paul attempting to convey in this phrase? Apparently the same thought as he expressed to the Colossians, that "in Him (Jesus) all the fullness of Deity dwells" (Col. 2;9). Or as Jesus said, "He who has seen Me, has seen the Father" (John 14:9), for "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), essentially and purposefully. Perhaps to counter the tendency of Judaism to make God into a monad, Paul wanted to emphasize to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem that Jesus is the very embodiment of deity, the self-existent, self-generating essence of God. All that God is, Jesus is, and Jesus is the better revelation of God, superior to the Jewish prophets because He is the very essence and Being of God in action.
Christian theologians
have long struggled to express this inexplicable oneness of Father and Son
(and Spirit). (cf. trinity) Sometimes they have
referred to the "hypostatic union" (from hupostasis) of the
persons of the Godhead, or to the consubstantial oneness of God as
"three in one". Other explanations have referred to the ontological
coinherence of Father and Son in perichoretic oneness (based on the Greek
word perichoresis, meaning the interpenetration of Being), or of the homoousion
of the singular sameness and oneness of Being in Father and Son. Simply put,
Paul wanted to tell the Jewish Christians that "Jesus is God," a
foundational premise of Christianity that they may have been in danger of
denying as they endured the pressure of Judaism in Continuing his
extended statement concerning Jesus, Paul writes that the Son "upholds
all things by the word of His power." This is not a portrayal of
Jesus as an "Atlas figure" holding up the planet in his hand. The
statement conveys more than the words of the popular song, "He's got the
whole world in His hand." Though inclusive of the idea of God's
providential sustenance of the created order, it appears that Paul's meaning
is closer to what he wrote to the Colossians, that "in Him (Jesus) all
things hold together" (Col. 1:17). "All things" of God (which
He is the co-creator of and heir of - cf. 1:2) are continually borne and
carried by the Son. Jesus bears the responsibility to express the dynamic of
God's empowering in all things. He was "declared the Son of God with
power by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4), and thus serves as
the divine agent of expressing the divine dynamic and empowering of all the
activities of God, including "the power of God for salvation to every
one who believes" (Rom. 1:16). The Palestinian Jews were preparing to make
a power-play against
In his continuing explanation of the divine work of the Son, Paul wrote, "Having made cleansing for sins, He (Jesus) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." The Jewish religion was obsessed with the cleansing of bodies, hands, feet, food, utensils, etc., always seeking a ceremonial purification. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies of the temple to effect a "cleansing of their sins before the Lord" (Lev. 16:30; cf. Exod. 30:10). Paul's objective in this epistle to the Hebrews is to categorically declare that Jesus is the fulfillment of the type of the high priest (Heb. 2:17; 4:14; 7:24-28), having dealt with the sins of mankind (Heb. 8:12; 10:12,17,18) once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:12,25,26; 10:10-12) by His own atoning sacrifice in death. The redemptive cleansing is complete and permanent in Christ. By His "finished work" (John 19:30) the penalty for sins is removed, and the sanctifying catharsis of the power of sin in Christian lives is operative.
Therefore, Paul
declares, "Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
high." In the Jewish temple the responsibilities of the priests
were never finished. "Every priest stands daily ministering and offering
time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins"
(Heb. 10:11), but Jesus "having offered one sacrifice for sins for all
time, sat down at the right hand of God" (Heb. 10:12). There is a
repeated allusion throughout this epistle (Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2) to
Psalm 110:1 and David's comment that "the Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at
My right hand...'" There was no place to sit in the Jewish temple
because the job was never done, and this is true of religion in general as it
requires ever-repetitive rituals and exercises in an attempt to please God.
Jesus, on the other hand, "accomplished the work which the Father gave
Him to do" (John 17:4), and exclaimed from the cross, "It is
finished!" (John 19:30). That is why He sat down, not because He was
tired or exhausted, but because as Christus Victor He had triumphed
over evil, cleansed mankind from their sins, and could thus assume the place of
honor and authority at the right hand of Majesty. The figure of Jesus being
"at the right hand of God" does not diminish His equality and
essential oneness with God, but represents pictorially His authority and
divine reign. "All authority is given to Me in heaven and earth"
(Matt. 28:18), Jesus declared. Despite this declaration, religion always
wants to attribute authority to a holy book, to a tradition, to an
organization, or to a person. All divine authority is vested in Jesus based
on His "finished work" which effectively and remedially dealt with
men's sins in order to restore God's intended Being in action in man. That is
why Paul can tell the Ephesians that all Christians are "seated in the
heavenlies with Christ" (Eph. 1:20; 2:6), resting (Heb. 4:1-11) in
Christ's "finished work". Why, then, would any Christian consider
reverting back to religion and its ceaseless activities, "standing
up" for this or that, fighting the pseudo-enemies in never-ending power
plays? Why would the Christians of Jerusalem want to join the nationalists
and their religious defense to "stand up" against
1:4 Though still a part of the previous sentence, Paul commences to explain that not only is Jesus better than the prophets, He is also better than the angels. This theme necessitates some background concerning the Jewish conception of angels and their relationship to God in order to fully appreciate Paul's argument.
The conception of God
as a transcendent monad in Jewish theology fostered an elaborate development
of angelology. Whenever there is alleged to be a great distance or a vast
separation between God and man, religion often employs the explanatory medium
of angels to serve as intermediaries to fill in that great gap, and to
provide an explanation of an indirect access to God via such angelic
go-betweens or liaisons. Such was certainly the case in the Judaic
understanding of the first century. Angels were regarded to be the agents of
everything God did. They were thought to be hierarchically formed into the
"army of God", controlling the destiny of the people and nation of
Jewish interpretation of Old Testament history inserted angelic involvement throughout. When God said, "Let us make man in our image" (Gen. 1:26), they explained that God was speaking to the angel assembly who would serve as His divine assistants in creation. Prayer was understood as angelic intercession whereby angels carried the prayers of God's people into the unapproachable presence of God, and returned to implement God's answer. Though the narrative in Exodus 19 and 20 does not refer to angels delivering the Law-tablets to Moses, this became the Jewish explanation, as is apparent in both the Old and New Testaments. Moses, himself, had explained that "the Lord came from Sinai...and He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones (angels?); at His right hand there was flashing lightning for them" (Deut. 33:2). The psalmist, David, mentions that "the chariots of God (angels?) are myriads, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them as at Sinai" (Psalm 68:17). These references to the involvement of angels at Mount Sinai when Moses received the Law are reiterated in the New Testament when Stephen's recitation of Jewish history notes that "the angel was speaking to him (Moses) on Mount Sinai" (Acts 7:38), and that the Jewish people "received the law as ordained by angels" (Acts 7:53). That this was also Paul's understanding is evident in his epistle to the Galatians: "It (the Law) was added because of transgression, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed (Jesus) should come to whom the promise had been made" (Gal. 3:19).
It is in the context
of this Jewish perception of angels that Paul writes that Jesus, the Son, "has
become as much better than the angels", as He is superior to the
prophets (1:1-3). The self-revelation of God in the Son supersedes previous
revelations of God through both the prophets and the angels. It is not Paul's
primary objective to counteract the erroneous reverence that the Jewish
people may have had concerning angels. Paul apparently shared the belief
about the intermediary actions of angels on
When was it that Jesus "became so much better than the angels" according to Paul's statement in this verse? It does not appear that Paul is referring to the incarnation of God in Jesus at His birth, but rather to the resurrection exaltation of Jesus, which will be supported in the following verses. The preexistent Son of God "inherited a more excellent name than the angelic beings" when He "was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4). When God "raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named...and put all things (including angels) under his feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church" (Eph. 1:20-22), Jesus became "heir of all things" (1:2), having been "bestowed with the name that is above every name" (Phil. 2:9). "Through the resurrection," Jesus "is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him" (I Peter 3:22), writes Peter. What Paul is saying here is that by His resurrection-victory (cf. I Cor. 15:57) Christus Victor is confirmed as the revelation of God Himself, superior to all angels. Though eternally the Son of God, He was "born as a child; a son given to man" (Isa. 9:6) whose name would be called "Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6), such "excellent name" made explicit by His resurrection when He was "declared the Son of God with power" (Rom. 1:4) to enact the entirety of God's grace initiative among men.
1:5 Continuing his argument Paul asks the Jewish Christians, "For to which of the angels did He ever say, 'THOU ART MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN THEE?'" This rhetorical question contains within its wording an implied negative answer. Never to any angels was such a divine declaration made. Employing the first of seven Old Testament quotations to bolster his argument of the superiority of Jesus over angels, Paul utilizes this series of quotations to demonstrate that "all the promises of God" (II Cor. 1:20) are fulfilled in Jesus Christ as "the heir of all things" (1:2). This first quotation is from the second Psalm, understood by the Jews to be a Messianic Psalm referring to God's anointed Messiah who would be decreed God's Son in a special way, and be given the nations as His inheritance (Psalm 2:7,8). Paul had previously used these very same words of Psalm 2:7 when he expounded the gospel in Antioch of Pisidia, declaring that "God has fulfilled this promise...in that He raised up Jesus, as it is written in the second Psalm, 'THOU ART MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN THEE'" (Acts 13:33). Clearly Paul considered the statement of this Messianic Psalm to have been fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus, whereby Jesus was "declared the Son of God with power" (Rom. 1:4), a "more excellent name" (1:4) than any angels, and was "begotten" of God. The word "begotten" is the Greek word meaning "to be born," and it is used of Moses' physical birth in 11:23, but here it is obviously to be understood figuratively as Jesus' being brought out of death into life in resurrection. In His resurrection Jesus was "the first-born from the dead" (Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5), having experienced spiritual death on behalf of all fallen humanity in order to allow the spiritual life of God to conquer death for all, that "He might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29) who would experience such spiritual birthing to life "in Him." By His victorious resurrection Jesus is the more excellent Son, begotten of God unto eternal life for all mankind. No angel qualifies for such a name or place, so Paul is asking the Jerusalem Christians why they would even consider going back to the inferior religious revelation of angels.
"And again," Paul adds to
reinforce his argument of Jesus having inherited the "more
excellent" name and place of Sonship, and then he proceeds to quote from
II Samuel 7:14, "I WILL BE A FATHER TO HIM, AND HE SHALL BE A SON
TO ME." The original context of this statement was God's
statement to David through Nathan, the prophet, indicating that He would
provide a descendant of David who would build a temple. Though this was an
obvious physical reference to his son, Solomon, who did build the temple in
Jerusalem, the Davidic offspring who would extend the Davidic kingdom was
often applied to the expectation of the Messiah in Jewish thought, and that
in conjunction with the similar statements of Psalm 89:1-4; 26-29. Paul
certainly connected the resurrection of Jesus with the promised Davidic
kingdom as is evident in that same message in Antioch of Pisidia cited above,
where he declared that God's raising up Jesus from the dead was the bestowal
of "the holy and sure blessings of David" (Acts 13:34). In the
opening of his epistle to the Romans the same link is made concerning God's
Son, "who was born a descendant of David, according to the flesh, who was
declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead"
(Rom. 1:3,4). To Timothy, Paul wrote, "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from
the dead, descendant of David" (II Tim. 2:8). In Paul's mind the
long-sought continuation of the promised Davidic kingdom was established by
the resurrection when the Son "inherited a more excellent name"
(1:4; Rom. 1:4) and assumed the throne of the promised spiritual
1:6 Paul extends the documentation of his argument, writing, "And again, when He brings the first-born into the world, He says, 'AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.'" It is still the resurrection that Paul has in mind, when "Christ was raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep" (I Cor. 15:20). By the resurrection God brought "the first-born from the dead" (Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5) into His eschatological economy, the salvific economy wherein He would restore mankind by "bringing many sons to glory" (Heb. 2:10) through the living Lord Jesus who was "the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). Let it be noted that if Jesus is the "first-born from the dead", then the Old Testament patriarchs and believers cannot be regarded as having passed from death to life spiritually in the same manner as new covenant Christians, for such regeneration is predicated on the prerequisite of Christ's resurrection (cf. I Peter 1:3). The word Paul employs concerning God's bringing "the first-born into the world" is not the Greek word kosmos, but the Greek word oikoumene, a derivative of the word from which we get the English word "economy," thus explaining the interpretation given above. As Paul will write in summation of this section of his epistle, "God did not subject to angels the economy to come" (2:5 - using the same Greek word, oikoumene), so his argument here is that the resurrected Son, the living Lord Jesus and His economy of grace, is superior to the actions of angels.
By the resurrection of "the first-born from the dead" (Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5), Paul indicates that God's pronouncement is, "LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM", quoting from Deuteronomy 32:43. The quotation is from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Old Testament, rather than from the Hebrew t |